The Nonesuch

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “One would suppose I was one of those unfortunate governesses who, for £24 a year, become drudges! But I’m no such thing! I’m excessively expensive, in fact.”

“So you once told me.”

“Well, it’s true. I don’t like to boast, but I can’t allow you to suppose that I eke out a miserable existence on a pittance. I am paid £150 a year!”

“My dear girl, it would make no difference if you were paid ten times that sum!”

“That shows how little you know! It makes a great deal of difference, I promise you. Females who are paid very high wages are never used like drudges.”

“You are at the beck and call of a woman I could more readily suppose to be your housekeeper than your mistress; you are obliged to endure impertinence from that abominable chit any time she is out of temper, and patronage from such mushrooms as—”

“Nonsense!” she interrupted. “Mrs Underhill treats me as if I were one of her family, and I won’t have her abused! I think myself very fortunate, and if I don’t dislike my position there can be no reason for anyone else to do so!”

“Oh, yes, there can be!” he retorted.

They had reached the gates of Staples, where the others had pulled up to wait for them. Miss Trent hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry that her tête-à-tête with the Nonesuch had come to an abrupt end, and when he and Lindeth had taken their leave she rode up the avenue to the house so lost in her own thoughts that Courtenay had to speak her name twice before she realized that she was being addressed.

He supposed her to be tired; and Tiffany, at her most caressing, was instantly all solicitude. Miss Trent was obliged to take herself to task for harbouring the uncharitable suspicion that her engaging manner sprang from a wish to avert a scold for her previous conduct.

Mrs Underhill said she was quite shocked to think of poor Lizzie’s indisposition, but not at all surprised. She and Charlotte had taken a turn in the shrubbery, which had regularly exhausted her, so hot as it had been. Miss Trent made no mention of Tiffany’s outburst, but when Courtenay came in he gave his mother a full and indignant account of it, stigmatizing his lovely cousin as a devil’s daughter whom he was ashamed to own, and adding that she might as well stop setting her cap at Lindeth, since the veriest clodpole could have seen how outrageous he thought her behaviour.

This was all very dreadful, but, as Mrs Underhill presently confided to Miss Trent, every cloud had a silver lining. “For Courtenay told me, my dear, that his lordship was downright shocked, so I shouldn’t wonder at it if he began to hedge off. Very likely it will have given him a disgust of her, for there’s nothing gentlemen hate more than the sort of dust Tiffany kicks up when she flies into one of her miffs. Don’t you think so?”

Miss Trent agreed. She also thought that Courtenay’s disgust was considerably stronger than Lindeth’s, but this she did not say.

“And it was Sir Waldo that stopped her from going her length, and took her off to Bardsey, which I’ll be bound you were glad of, my dear, though whether it was what he wanted to do is another matter!”

The arch note in the good lady’s voice was unmistakeable. Miss Trent’s fine eyes turned towards her involuntarily, asking a startled question.

“Lor’, my dear, as if I was such a nodcock as not to know it’s you he’s got a preference for!” said Mrs Underhill, with a fat chuckle. “To be sure, I did think at first that he was making up to Tiffany, but for all I haven’t got book-learning I hope I’ve enough rum gumption to know he’s trying to fix his interest with you!”

“You are mistaken, ma’am—you must be mistaken!” stammered Ancilla.

“Well, that’s what I thought myself, when I first took the notion into my head,” conceded Mrs Underhill. “Not that I mean you ain’t genteel, as I hope I don’t need to tell you, for I’m sure anyone would take you for a lady of quality, such distinguished ways as you have, which even Mrs Mickleby has remarked to me more than once. But there’s no denying it isn’t to be expected that such a smart as Sir Waldo wouldn’t be looking a great deal higher if he was hanging out for a wife, for from what Mrs M. tells me he’s a gentleman of the first consequence, let alone being as rich as a new-shorn lamb, and has goodness knows how many fine ladies on the catch for him!”

“Ma’am!” interrupted Ancilla, in a stifled voice, “I am neither a fine lady, nor am I on the catch for Sir Waldo!”